


Bitter Brew

by tvsn



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Gen, enemies to ... worse enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11214237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvsn/pseuds/tvsn
Summary: Quite legitimately the worst TURN Coffee Shop AU you will ever read.Slow burn? No burn. It is just four pages of Simcoe making sure Hewlett doesn’t get any of the coffee he is constantly trying to brew.





	Bitter Brew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenofallshades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenofallshades/gifts).



> (Whom I also have to thank for the title. I cede my punning crown to you, my dear!)

He spent much of his day in the company of an overworked office coffee machine.

It had been that way since he had fist seen her. From nine until noon he would stand in wait. With each drip, he found himself drowning in another detail of the woman with a voice as dark and rich as the fair-trade roast he drank to give him something to do. He drank cup after cup; it made his heart and fingers jitter in rhythm with the tip-tip-tap of footsteps rounding the corridor.

Heels that never turned out to be hers.

He did this every day.

He had yet to learn her name.

He had taken to asking everyone who entered the breakroom. Everyone.

“I haven’t the faintest idea to whom you are referring,” said the short man struggling to reach the non-dairy creamer Simcoe had placed on the top shelf of the cabinet above the sink. He stared at him with a fixed scowl, his fine lines serving to transform his otherwise odd face into a cracked mosaic as he fought. Simcoe smirked in response to it. He had taken it upon himself to ensure that the powder remained out of reach to most as it might provide him with an opportunity to again retrieve it for the dark eyed damsel with a curiously deep voice who had insisted she did not need any assistance. She had swallowed her thanks as he, ignoring her protests and every other signal she had been sending, took the store-brand substance made to change the coffee’s colour and handed it down to her with a smile.

She mixed it into her mug and left without another word. It had been the greatest moment of his life, the beginning, he was certain, of what would prove a glorious romance.

He had not seen her since.

So he waited.

The man who occupied what he deemed to be her place took a chair from the small dinette set, which Simcoe himself had never seen used, to serve the purpose of a stepping-stool. When the man had taken the creamer – carefully measuring out an exact teaspoon – he failed to return it to where he had found it, thereby adding an extra level of redundancy to Simcoe’s self-imposed duty. He hated him instantly in the irrational manner that tends only to manifest itself after ten cups of that beverage as bitter as his ever-growing disappointment that the woman whose name he had never learned had yet to return.

He hated him more and more each minute.

Simcoe placed the creamer back on the top shelf where it belonged and moved the chair back to the table it shared with three others, warning the man to be somewhat more mindful of his messes and missteps.

The man ignored him and went to pour himself a cup of coffee, only to find that the machine held less than half a cup. This upset him and he – muttering something incoherent – filled a filter with fresh grounds. He seemed to have a mind to join Simcoe in waiting on it to brew until he told him that this task took the old appliance around ten minutes. Wanting to seem as though his job was of some particular importance, the garden gnome with the face of a gargoyle scowled again, ordered Simcoe to watch his mug and returned to what Simcoe was almost certain was a cubicle to run an invoice or send an email or perform some other useless task people who did not enjoy his level of job security were want to do.

Simcoe, questionably, decided to obey. He watched the cup for the entire time he remained in the kitchen, which, was to say, ten minuets exactly. Before he left he poured most of the contents of the pot down the sink, leaving just enough to disqualify him from preparing it anew.

On his way back to his desk he was stopped by the receptionist who found herself in what he imagined to be the most uncomfortable position of carrying messages between his hated boss and the head of human resources. As he politely agreed to shoulder a portion of the burden, he saw the man enter the kitchen from the corner of his eye and heard him censoring his spontaneous curses as he came to discover that he had been denied or detained from mid-morning dose of caffeine.

In that moment, John Graves Simcoe decided that it was worth all of the time and energy he had to invest to ensure that the man who had refused to put the creamer back where it belonged would never get to enjoy a cup of weak office coffee for exactly that reason.

 

* * *

 

A month passed. The routine altered slightly. Though his mornings were still spent in wait, downing cups of what should have reasonably been alcohol at this point, Simcoe no longer stood about aimlessly in hopes that his dark haired beauty would return. No. He had a separate mission that was worth seeing through.

He learned the man’s name was Edmund Hewlett, that he worked in IT and that he was a complete bore when he was not going through the throws of caffeine withdrawal.

It was relatively easy to keep him in desperate deprivation, however. Sometimes Simcoe would rearrange the cabinets, causing Hewlett to spend the entirely of his precisely timed break looking for coffee, creamer, the very cup he drank it from. Sometimes he would text Eastin who would ring his boss on his mobile moments before the machine began to sputter its swan song with an ‘emergency’ that ‘could not wait’. Sometimes he would bring in a box of donuts and fill the room with hungry colleagues to block his entry, co-workers who all individually understood the unwritten corporate guideline that the person who takes the last cup makes the next pot – a distinction which Simcoe reserved for his discontent little friend.

It was at about this point that Hewlett began engaging in an attempt at retaliation – an act which immediately backfired in the form of an €80 cheque for all of the coffee various employees reported seeing him brewing throughout the day. This satisfied Simcoe immensely when the receptionist told him about it on his way into work one cold Wednesday morning. Thoughts of retaking the breakroom for himself and the woman he hoped his height might once again impress broadened his lips until he was told that he was expected in André’s office as well.

 

* * *

 

“You cannot simply take the funds from my pay, I am all but certain a statute exists forbidding the practice -”

“Find it for me and we can discuss the matter further.”

“Ah, I believe in 2006 amended edition of Article 35, Paragraph 2 of the International -”

Simcoe could see from the doorway that there was a decent chance that he would be finished with this meeting before the morning melee in the breakroom truly began. André looked as though he were nursing a hangover, an effort Simcoe knew from experience the pitch of his voice would serve to offset. He greeted both men merrily as he took the rubix cube from the side of André’s desk, and, ignoring a demand that he put it down, sat beside Hewlett as his fingers worked to solve it.

“It is not as though I’ve even had a chance to partake in the coffee I’ve gone through pains to make,” Hewlett insisted for what Simcoe could reasonably assume was at least the thirtieth time.

“Partake?” Simcoe questioned peculiar choice in verb. Hewlett sneered as he was want to do. Perhaps, he considered rather generously, the constant scorn owed itself to some sort of birth defect and there was nothing to be done for it. Still, it provided him with some measure of sport and he returned the angry stare.

“I have a suggestion which might help you to sort this matter like the mature adults I otherwise know you both to be,” André interjected before argument could manifest in accordance with what had become the natural order of things. Hewlett sighed. Simcoe heard in it the sentiment he suddenly shared – the director of Human Resources was still plastered from his last party and this could thus threaten to take the whole day.

“Mr. Simcoe, Mr. Hewlett states that you have taken various measures to ensure that he has not gotten to drink any of the coffee that accounting informs me has cost this frim €80 over budget this past quarter. Do you care to explain?”

He cared to kick himself.

“I am certain it was an oversight. When I print the reports on Friday, as I will remind you I do every second Friday, I am all but sure the mistake can be corrected,” Simcoe assured him, with reference to of one of the many services he preformed that otherwise permitted him to conduct his days as he pleased. The workplace celebrated what it called Casual Friday ever two weeks, in which time the dress code was relaxed. On André’s insistence, Simcoe had started sending a seventeen-hundred-odd page spreadsheet to Human Resource’s printer whenever the calendar allowed for the reasonable assumption that the intern who mistook leggings for pants could be called upon to fix a paper jam during his recurring fashion faux pas.

“No need,” André lamented. “He’s been let go.”

At this Simcoe straightened. “I signed Robert Rogers up for over 300 internet newsletters yesterday alone,” he attempted, listing another vital service that did not strictly fall under his job criteria which he selflessly performed for the amusement of the man set on wasting precious time he could otherwise spend waiting around in the kitchen.

“That is initiative,” André replied. It was the closest Simcoe would ever hear to ‘well done.’ Hewlett’s sudden outrage was enough of a pat on the back.

“That is you as well?” he demanded. “I don’t – I don’t even know what in that surprises me, but Sirs, with respect, it needs to end. He rings me personally – sometimes in the middle of the night – sometimes just to advise me that IKEA is having a sale or to read me his H+M coupon code as a means of torture if I am unable to remove him from all of those many mailing lists during the regular course of my workday. Have you any concept of how taxing -”

“With equal respect, Sir,” Simcoe interrupted, “have you considered that you might have more time to attend to your responsibilities if you did not spend so much time brewing more than your fair share of coffee?”

“Ah, that is – how?” he looked to André for help.

“As I was saying,” the department director continued, “Payroll took €80 from Mr. Hewlett’s last cheque to cover the auxiliary costs you have both accrued in whatever … this is,” he gestured vaguely. “What I am suggesting is that you reimburse him that amount, perhaps in coffee. Why don’t you both … leave the office … go to the corner shop. Every day. Until the debt is repaid. A real date.” He smiled, reaching to grab the rubix cube as Simcoe paused in shock.

“There are federal regulations of which you should be aware against questioning or voicing assumptions with reference to the sexuality of any employee. Not only am I offended by the offer but the mere suggestion -”

“Alright,” Simcoe smiled. “I’ll buy you a few cups of coffee, Eddie.”

With that André waved them out in dismissal to return to drinking away whatever misery he decided it fashionable to be suffering as Simcoe hoped he might.

“Thank God, we could have been there all day,” he said when the door had closed behind them. “Look, I’ll run to the ATM to get your money, you go down to the coffee shop look at the price list and determine how many days we can afford to skip out early for whatever barmy team building -”

“Ah … no you’re not - you don’t actually think that you are getting out of actually buying me a cup of coffee after the hell you have put me through?”

“You don’t actually think that I am going to spend a full half hour of what is essentially paid leave watching you sip at some steamed milk based -”

“Oh I do,” Hewlett smiled. “Trust me, I do.”

 

* * *

 

That afternoon Simcoe learned that there were fates far worse than spending time in the company of overworked coffee machines. Hewlett, for example. Hewlett was far worse at conversation then the appliance and had a far more redundant job at that, which, as misfortune would have it, he regarded as fascinating.

Later he learned that Hewlett’s social life primarily revolved around making sure his mother – whom he still lived with – ate her vegetables and looking at the sky alone at night though a telescope as though seeing some distant ball with the aid of a series of lenses somehow made it interesting.

And this, he thought, promised to last for the next three months.

“Anna, darling!” Hewlett rose in greeting. Simcoe turned around, expecting to find himself faced with an elderly woman who played Bingo with Hewlett’s mum on Wednesday nights.

Instead he saw her, the woman he had handed coffee creamer to months before. The woman he swore to himself would one day bear his name and his children.

Her own name was Anna.

And she rushed past him to kiss Hewlett on the cheek.

How he hated him.

In that moment, John Graves Simcoe decided that it was worth all of the time and energy he had to invest to ensure that the man would suffer every torment he could imagine.  

**Author's Note:**

> I just love these two. I could reasonably write them in any type of senario or relationship that involves a lot of snark and backstabbing (... so, any kind of senario or relationship.) Comments and kudos are always fun, nothing ever shows up in my inbox except short emails from my thesis advisor so if you want to make my day (or trip me up) 'Okay. Danke.' is enough.
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> XOXO - Tav


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